"Family Values" Mississippi Republican outed by receipts from gay sex shop

TowleRoad has the goods.

[A] review by The CA shows that Davis spent thousands of dollars at the Mesquite Chop House in Southaven and thousands more at local liquor stores. Also included in the receipts is a charge for $67 at Priape, a store in Toronto that is described by its website as "Canada's premiere gay lifestyle store and sex shop."

Davis said he didn't remember what he bought at the store, which he visited on a recruitment trip with Mid-South warehouse developers.

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The time Christopher Hitchens let himself be waterboarded

Christopher Hitchens writing in Vanity Fair in 2008:

ou may have read by now the official lie about this treatment, which is that it “simulates” the feeling of drowning. This is not the case. You feel that you are drowning because you are drowning—or, rather, being drowned, albeit slowly and under controlled conditions and at the mercy (or otherwise) of those who are applying the pressure. The “board” is the instrument, not the method. You are not being boarded. You are being watered. This was very rapidly brought home to me when, on top of the hood, which still admitted a few flashes of random and worrying strobe light to my vision, three layers of enveloping towel were added. In this pregnant darkness, head downward, I waited for a while until I abruptly felt a slow cascade of water going up my nose. Determined to resist if only for the honor of my navy ancestors who had so often been in peril on the sea, I held my breath for a while and then had to exhale and—as you might expect—inhale in turn. The inhalation brought the damp cloths tight against my nostrils, as if a huge, wet paw had been suddenly and annihilatingly clamped over my face. Unable to determine whether I was breathing in or out, and flooded more with sheer panic than with mere water, I triggered the pre-arranged signal and felt the unbelievable relief of being pulled upright and having the soaking and stifling layers pulled off me. I find I don’t want to tell you how little time I lasted.

This is because I had read that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, invariably referred to as the “mastermind” of the atrocities of September 11, 2001, had impressed his interrogators by holding out for upwards of two minutes before cracking. (By the way, this story is not confirmed. My North Carolina friends jeered at it. “Hell,” said one, “from what I heard they only washed his damn face before he babbled.”) But, hell, I thought in my turn, no Hitchens is going to do worse than that. Well, O.K., I admit I didn’t outdo him. And so then I said, with slightly more bravado than was justified, that I’d like to try it one more time. There was a paramedic present who checked my racing pulse and warned me about adrenaline rush. An interval was ordered, and then I felt the mask come down again. Steeling myself to remember what it had been like last time, and to learn from the previous panic attack, I fought down the first, and some of the second, wave of nausea and terror but soon found that I was an abject prisoner of my gag reflex. The interrogators would hardly have had time to ask me any questions, and I knew that I would quite readily have agreed to supply any answer. I still feel ashamed when I think about it. Also, in case it’s of interest, I have since woken up trying to push the bedcovers off my face, and if I do anything that makes me short of breath I find myself clawing at the air with a horrible sensation of smothering and claustrophobia. No doubt this will pass. As if detecting my misery and shame, one of my interrogators comfortingly said, “Any time is a long time when you’re breathing water.” I could have hugged him for saying so, and just then I was hit with a ghastly sense of the sadomasochistic dimension that underlies the relationship between the torturer and the tortured. I apply the Abraham Lincoln test for moral casuistry: “If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong.” Well, then, if waterboarding does not constitute torture, then there is no such thing as torture.

Totally unrelated, I love this anecdote about the guy. Read the rest of this post...

Bigot Rick Warren weighs in on Christopher Hitchens’ death

I'm having a hard time finding the right words for this.  Pig, comes to mind. Read the rest of this post...

Reid: GOP tried to get Dems to cut Medicare again

Just got the following info from a Senate Democratic aide:

Senate leaders have reached an agreement on a two-month deal to extend the payroll tax cut and unemployment insurance.

Democratic negotiators offered a fully-paid for, one-year continuation of the middle class payroll tax cut and unemployment insurance, but Republicans rejected it, insisting on cutting Medicare benefits and refighting old battles on health care reform as part of any one-year deal. Republican negotiators wanted to raise premiums on Medicare beneficiaries and charge middle class families more for their health care.

If Republicans are going to make cutting Medicare benefits the price of extending a middle class tax cut for one year, we'll take the two month extension and gladly have this fight for American families again in February.

And here's a statement Senate Majority Leader Reid's office just released.

STATEMENT BY SENATOR HARRY REID

“Democrats have worked tirelessly to prevent a thousand-dollar tax increase on middle-class families, but my Republican colleagues wouldn’t agree to long-term tax relief unless Democrats agreed to cut Medicare benefits for seniors. Tomorrow, the Senate will take up and pass a two-month extension of the middle class tax cut, along with unemployment insurance and the so-called ‘doc fix.’ For the next two months, Democrats will work to extend the middle-class tax cut through the end of the year. Republicans can either join us, or explain why they want middle-class families’ taxes to go up.”

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Dutch investigation reveals another Catholic church abuse scandal

The Catholic church really needs to spend a lot more time focusing on their internal child rape problems that span the globe than causing problems for others. The church doesn't even come close to owning any moral high ground position, so it's best that they move on to real problems such as corruption within their own organization and helping the poor.

The report by the an independent commission said Catholic officials failed to tackle the widespread abuse "to prevent scandals." The suspected number of abuse victims who spent some of their youth in church institutions likely lies somewhere between 10,000 and 20,000, according to a summary of the report. Based on a survey among more than 34,000 people, the commission estimated that one in 10 Dutch children suffered some form of abuse. The number doubled to 20 percent of children who spent part of their youth in an institution — whether Catholic or not. The commission said it received some 1,800 complaints of abuse at Catholic schools, seminaries and orphanages and that the institutions suffered from "a failure of oversight." It then conducted the broader survey of the general population for a more comprehensive analysis of the scale and nature of sexual abuse of minors.

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Stop motion animation of first six minutes of Raiders of the Lost Ark

This is cool. They use the real voicetrack, but the action is stop motion animation.

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Photo: NYPD knees, takes down credentialed photojournalist for multiple wire services and papers

This ought to be against the law. Americans talk a good talk about freedom and all, but when it comes to defending it at home, the Democrats are often missing in the action, or outright aiding and abetting the Republicans, who seem to care a lot about the flag and the Constitution as campaign props, but that's about it.  It's violation of the Constitution, not just some cop making the wrong choice.

Either we believe in freedom or we don't.  It is amazing how politicians of both parties genuflect before the words flag and constitution, but are deathly afraid of doing anything to defend what those objects represent.

From Capital New York, which has the photo that you must click over and see:

Reached by phone, Kelly said that at the time, he was scurrying over to the site of an arrest when the beefier of two officers blindsided him with a knee to the ribs. The picture was taken in the moments immediately thereafter.

"What did you do that for? I'm press," Kelly recalled saying.

"Sorry. I didn't realize you were press," he said the officer replied. As you can see in the picture, he was carrying two cameras and was wearing his credentials over his coat around his neck.

Kelly said he has encountered some general obstruction while on assignment since: "The thing that annoys me the most is, you say, 'Hey look, I'm press!' And it doesn't seem to matter at all."

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Senator Feinstein clueless about SOPA/PIPA support

My goodness, this is bad. We should expect a lot more from the political class who are voting on important issues such as making major changes to the internet. This is another example of why Americans dislike politicians and think they all deserve to be voted out of office. Senator Feinstein somehow believes that the tech industry supports SOPA/PIPA despite the long list of industry giants who are against it. Co-founders of Netscape, Mozilla Firefox, Google, Twitter, Flickr, Yahoo!, LinkedIn, Huffington Post, YouTube, PayPal, Craigslist, eBay, Wikipedia, and Blogger have all come out against it. Microsoft is against it. Facebook has said that it's against it.

In the debates over SOPA and PROTECT IP (PIPA), one thing that has been clear is that neither California Senator has been any help at all. When asked about this, I've been told, multiple times, that despite both being from Northern California, as long-term politicians they're completely ignorant of technology issues, and "follow the money" down to Southern California. We've already written about Zach Carter's excellent behind the scenes report on the politicking behind SOPA and PROTECT IP, but there's one ridiculous tidbit that was worth highlighting to show just how incredibly out of touch Senator Dianne Feinstein is. When asked about this issue, Feinstein appeared totally clueless, believing that the tech industry was fine with the bills: When HuffPost asked Feinstein, a Protect IP co-sponsor, if it was difficult for her to navigate the bill with Silicon Valley and Hollywood on opposite sides, she responded: "I don't believe that they are. I thought we had reconciled the issues. The bill's been passed out of committee." The response seems incredible given the outcry from Silicon Valley, and Google in particular, but the complexity of the legislation has left many lawmakers vulnerable to K Street spin.

Is she blinded by campaign contributions or is she and her staff oblivious to the world around them? Either way, this is bad news. Read the rest of this post...

Obama to sign "Indefinite Detention by the Military" bill into law

Short and incredibly depressing. The "indefinite detention" bill is actually the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).

Even though the NDAA passed the Senate, Obama has been saying (i.e., using words to assert an actual intention) that he would veto this violation of the Bill of Rights.

Wrong. Is it Cave Week again? Looks like words aren't all they're cracked up to be.

Glenn Greenwald (emphasis in original; my paragraphing):

In one of the least surprising developments imaginable, President Obama – after spending months threatening to veto the Levin/McCain detention bill – yesterday announced that he would instead sign it into law (this is the same individual, of course, who unequivocally vowed when seeking the Democratic nomination to support a filibuster of “any bill that includes retroactive immunity for telecom[s],” only to turn around – once he had the nomination secure — and not only vote against such a filibuster, but to vote in favor of the underlying bill itself, so this is perfectly consistent with his past conduct).

As a result, the final version [pdf] of the Levin/McCain bill will be enshrined as law this week as part of the the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).

I wrote about the primary provisions and implications of this bill last week, and won’t repeat those points here.

The ACLU said last night that the bill contains “harmful provisions that some legislators have said could authorize the U.S. military to pick up and imprison without charge or trial civilians, including American citizens, anywhere in the world” and added: “if President Obama signs this bill, it will damage his legacy.”

Human Rights Watch said that Obama’s decision “does enormous damage to the rule of law both in the US and abroad” and that “President Obama will go down in history as the president who enshrined indefinite detention without trial in US law.”

Glenn has more. The underlying Guardian news story is here.

Tell me again why I should support the Democratic party — I forget.

I will say, on a more general note, that regardless of how any individual feels, Obama is systematically crossing Dem lines of conscience, Dem after Dem after Dem.

At some point, there simply won't be enough Dems who can, in conscience, vote for him, no matter what drek the other side spits up. A huge opportunity to cement party gains, thoroughly wasted.

GP Read the rest of this post...

Special Netroots Nation early-bird rate through midnight tonight (Friday)

Netroots Nation, the annual progressive blog conference, has cut its registration price for today only, and rolled it back to the early bird price that you had to buy months ago.  If you buy a registration by midnight tonight it's $195, compared to the regular price of $235.  If you know for sure you're going to the conference, you might as well buy your registration now and save the money.  Otherwise, like me, you'll keep paying a lot more to buy it at the last minute :)

Next year the conference is in Providence, Rhode Island from June 7-10, 2012.

Use this link to register (once you get to the page, scroll down to find the "register now" button), and if you do it by midnight tonight (Friday, December 16, 2011), you'll get the early bird rate.  Thanks, JOHN Read the rest of this post...

Romney accuses Obama of deliberately harming America for political reasons

Words of a desperate man.
 

Romney to Hannity, via Greg Sargent at the Washington Post:

I think the President has gone from being a failed Presidency, a guy over his head, to someone who is now so desperate to get reelection that he’s doing things that are very much counter to the interest of the country and he knows it.In the past I think he was just misguided. Now I think he really knows that his decision on Afghanistan to pull the troops out a couple of months earlier than commanders suggested — that was not a wise thing for the country. The Keystone pipeline, he knows we need that oil, he knows the consequences. In order to hold on to his power he’s willing to tip his hat to the extreme environmental lobby in his party. It’s an unveiling of the President that is not a flattering picture that we see.

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Government shutdown averted

From McJoan at Daily Kos:

There won't be a partial government shutdown, apparently, as House and Senate leaders negotiated a $1 trillion deal to fund the government through 2012, with 27 hours to spare. The bill eliminates the restrictions on travel to Cuba that the administration opposed. It still contains a ban on the District of Columbia spending local tax money on abortion, cuts out funding for the IRS to begin gearing up for implementation of the Affordable Care Act, and of course blocks new light bulb standards, standards that were signed into law by George W. Bush.

On the payroll tax cut extension, unemployment benefit extension, Medicare "doc fix" front, there are possible outcomes, the best of which is a temporary two-month extension so they can come back and hammer out the precedent-setting pay-fors. Apparently all sides have conceded that tax cuts for the middle class have to be paid for, even if those for rich people don't, so someone is gonna get hurt. And it's not going to be millionaires, because that demand has been officially dropped.

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IMF warns of 1930’s economic crisis if no cooperation

Christine Lagarde has been one of the best changes at the IMF in a long time. She's smart and no-nonsense and has not bought into the more typical world view within the political class that the bankers need to still call the shots. Lagarde is now warning countries that there needs to be a lot more cooperation if we're going to get through this crisis. Storming out of meetings might be one example of being counter-productive, which will only make the situation worse. The Guardian:

Speaking at the State Department in Washington, Lagarde said: "There is no economy in the world, whether low-income countries, emerging markets, middle-income countries or super-advanced economies, that will be immune to the crisis that we see not only unfolding but escalating. "It is not a crisis that will be resolved by one group of countries taking action. It is going to be hopefully resolved by all countries, all regions, all categories of countries actually taking some action." Lagarde said that the scale of the eurozone crisis, and its implications for other countries, meant that Europe's governments could not tackle it alone. "It is going to require efforts, it is going to require adjustment; and clearly it is going to have to start from the core of the crisis at the moment, which is obviously the European countries, and in particular the countries of the eurozone," Lagarde said.

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Spencer Ackerman: Where we really are in Iraq (plus drone talk)

This is a nice interview, a great where-we-are piece. You should come away pleased with the way you spent your minutes.

We (the U.S.) have supposedly left Iraq, and the chest-bumps are everywhere. But where are we really? What have we left behind? Ackerman is an expert on this stuff.

The piece starts with a discussion of the NDAA (National Defense Authorization Act) now before Congress. This is the bill that includes the "Indefinite Detention on the Everywhere Battlefield" provision. (The interview took place prior to the Senate's successful vote to approve.)

If that sounds like martial law by the way, rolled out in stages, your ears aren't lying to you. Could the Republicans be worse than our own irrepressible Dems? (That 2012 Obama scare-arg gets harder and harder to make, doesn't it?)

At 5:45 Ackerman discusses Iraq and what we've left behind. (Hint: That would be us; we've left us behind, with 5000+ mercs as guards.) Ackerman: "The U.S. military comes home; the hired military goes in."

At 13:55 the talk shifts to drones, Pakistan, and the money we give them. The discussion of North Waziristan in Pakistan (described as "the epicenter of global terrorism" and "a complete black box") is fascinating, as is the ultimate Pakistani problem — how do they take their money and yet stop us from killing them?

Listen:



The interviewer is Sam Seder of the daily political podcast Majority.fm (an excellent national daily broadcast, by the way, and good news source).

GP Read the rest of this post...

Newt and Romney both support Ryan budget that would end Medicare as we know it

The DNC's read of last night's final GOP presidential debate of 2011:

Tonight, both Romney and Gingrich put America’s seniors on notice. They’ve endorsed Republicans plans that would end Medicare as we know it, while not asking large corporations or the wealthiest for a dime to create jobs or restore economic security for the middle class. While these candidates embrace the policies favored by the Tea Party, it’s clear that not even the programs seniors rely on the most are safe.

REALITY: ROMNEY AND GINGRICH SUPPORT GOP BUDGET THAT WOULD END MEDICARE AS WE KNOW IT

WSJ: “The [GOP Budget] Plan Would Essentially End Medicare.” “The plan would essentially end Medicare, which now pays most of the health-care bills for 48 million elderly and disabled Americans, as a program that directly pays those bills.” [Wall Street Journal, 4/4/11]

Romney: “I Believe It Is A Very Important Step To Protect Medicare...We’re Going To Have To Make Changes Like The Ones Paul Ryan Proposed.” ROMNEY: “Actually I spent a good deal of time with Congressman Ryan. When he plan came out I applauded it as a very important step. I said my plan would be a little different or would be different in some respects but that we were on the same page. This is a place where speaker Gingrich and I disagree. He called this right wing social engineering. I believe it is a very important step to protect Medicare and to protect social security we’re going to have to make changes like the ones Paul Ryan proposed.” [Romney, Cedar Rapids Town Hall, 12/9/11]

Romney Said “Yes” He Would Sign The Republican Budget. “On health care, Romney responded ‘yes’ when asked if he would sign the plan written by Rep. Paul Ryan that would restructure Medicare if it reached his desk as President, but quickly added that he would be offering his own plan.” [ABC News, 6/2/11]

Gingrich Said He Would Have Voted For The Ryan Plan. “A couple of weeks ago, I spent a day following Newt Gingrich around New Hampshire. After a radio interview in Concord, Gingrich had a lunchtime Guinness at the Barley House in Concord with Thomas Wilhelmsen, the CEO of a local hospital who first met Gingrich in the mid-1990s. They lapsed into wonky talk about ObamaCare and health insurance premiums. ‘Every hospital administrator, like Tom here, will tell you it’s unsustainable, it can’t be done,’ Gingrich said, explaining why he wants to repeal the law. So, I asked if he would advocate replacing it with Paul Ryan’s plan. The former speaker sang Ryan’s praises for being a ‘brave’ ‘man of ideas,’ like Gingrich himself. ‘But would you have voted for Ryan’s plan?’ I pressed. ‘Sure,’ Gingrich replied.” [Time, 5/15/11]

REALITY: THE RYAN PLAN WOULD COST SENIORS OVER $6,000 OUT OF POCKET

The GOP Budget Would Force Seniors To Pay Twice As Much. The Republican budget would end the traditional Medicare program for those 55 and under and essentially convert it into a voucher program. The budget forces seniors into a more expensive private plan. In 2022, a typical 65-year-old would have to pay $6,400 more in health care expenses, or twice the amount they would under the current system. [LA Times, 4/7/11]

· In 2022, Beneficiaries Out Of Pocket Costs Would Be $6,400 Higher Under Ryan's Proposal Than Traditional Medicare. "In 2022, the first year the voucher would apply, CBO estimates that total health care expenditures for a typical 65-year-old would be almost 40 percent higher with private coverage under the Ryan plan than they would be with a continuation of traditional Medicare. (See graph.) CBO also finds that this beneficiary's annual out-of-pocket costs would more than double — from $6,150 to $12,500. In later years, as the value of the voucher eroded, the increase in out-of-pocket costs would be even greater." [Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, 4/7/11]

· CBO: “Most Elderly People Would Pay More For Their Health Care Than They Would Pay Under The Current Medicare System.” According to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, under the GOP budget, “most elderly people would pay more for their health care than they would pay under the current Medicare system. For a typical 65-year-old with average health spending enrolled in a plan with benefits similar to those currently provided by Medicare, CBO estimated the beneficiary’s spending on premiums and out-of-pocket expenditures as a share of a benchmark: what total health care spending would be if a private insurer covered the beneficiary. By 2030, the beneficiary’s spending would be 68 percent of that benchmark under the proposal, 25 percent under the extended-baseline scenario, and 30 percent under the alternative fiscal scenario.” [CBO, 4/5/11]

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UK to pay price for EU rejection on derivatives trading

Well that didn't take long. As I mentioned last weekend, Cameron's move was likely to have consequences and now, the UK would be outside of the decision making process. Brilliant move by Cameron. There was nothing inherently wrong with having a difference of opinion but to storm out and make it an all-or-nothing situation when it didn't have to be was not necessary. If Cameron thought he was protecting his precious bankers, he was wrong. Bloomberg:

The U.K. has sued the European Central Bank over its plans to prevent trades in some euro-denominated securities from being cleared outside of the 17 countries that share the currency. It was the first such move by a government. Britain also sought to thwart the ECB stance by seeking safeguards in the draft derivatives legislation. Lawmakers in the European Parliament “demanded” that the October compromise be reconsidered, according to an EU document dated Dec. 14 and obtained by Bloomberg News. The Parliament and national governments must agree on the law before it can enter into force. Michel Barnier, the EU’s financial-services chief, has said that the U.K. demands at the summit would have granted the country an unacceptable opt-out from European rules. Losing protection for its derivatives industry would be “a very early indication of the potential damage done to the U.K.’s interests on a broad front of financial regulation driven from Brussels,” Reid said.

Cameron better sit down because there's a lot more of this coming whether he likes it or not. How's that hard line position looking now, old boy? Read the rest of this post...

Jacque Chirac found guilty of corruption

The charges against him were never a surprise (he did work in politics for decades, after all) but his conviction was a surprise considering his old age and the old-boy network that exists. I'm less convinced that this will be remembered for the most, because many already suspected as much for him and the rest of the political class to begin with. His fight against the Iraq war is much more likely to be what people remember about him in France and beyond. Does his corruption conviction really change anything? The Guardian:

Jacques Chirac may have hoped to be remembered as the dapper president and diplomatic heavyweight who retired from the world stage to become the unofficial grandfather of his nation. A man of "flesh and blood and principles … employed in the service of his country," as he put it. Instead, his place in French history has been seriously tarnished after a Paris court convicted him of embezzling public funds and gave him a two-year suspended prison sentence on corruption charges. Posterity may judge that the former president's greatest achievement was not taking France into the euro or opposing the Iraq war, but inadvertently shining a light on the cronyism and corruption that have long dogged French politics.

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Berkeley offers 'middle class' tuition program

It's good news that UC Berkeley has joined a few other schools in capping tuition to actual family income. but we need a lot more schools to do this. We also need universities to be a lot more affordable. It's hard to overlook the steep increases in tuition at the same time student loans ballooned, not to mention the steep increase in salaries for university executives. When I went to college I worked at least 40 yours per week across 2 or 3 jobs, but I don't know if that would work for students today. It sickens me to see university presidents making seven figures when tuition has increased so substantially.

Many of the big university endowment funds have taken a beating in the last few years, much like the retirement plans of Americans. Even with those losses, the numbers are staggering and it's time for Congress to start investigating these programs and possibly taxing them if the universities don't want to use that money for students. For too many universities, the money gets caught up in their ego and they are more concerned about growing that number than actually helping students.

Bloomberg:

The University of California, Berkeley, is offering a new financial-aid program to help families whose gross annual income is $80,000 to $140,000 amid tuition increases and state funding cuts.

The contribution those families make toward the annual cost -- including tuition, fees and expenses, room, board and books - - would be capped at 15 percent of their earnings, according to a statement today.

Berkeley, one of the most selective public universities in the U.S., joined some of the wealthiest private colleges, including Harvard University and Amherst College, in enhancing financial-aid plans for middle-income families. Williams College and Dartmouth College in 2010 scaled back their “no-loan” programs as their endowment values fell. Berkeley said its plan is a response to the state’s high cost of living, the challenges faced by families in the income range and rising tuitions.

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